Kansas high school students who took the ACT this year averaged a composite score of 21.9 out of a possible 36, down from 22 in 2011, though 29 percent of the students met college readiness benchmarks in English, math, reading and science, which is up from 28 percent last year.

Both scores beat the national averages — a 21.1 composite score and 25 percent for college benchmarks.

In the past five years, the Kansas Department of Education said in a news release, the state hasn’t seen much fluctuation in the overall score average. But the trend goes back at least twice as far. In 2002, the average score in Kansas was 21.6.

But while overall ACT performance has remained relatively flat, one number has risen consistently — public education funding.

A decade ago, Kansas schools spent an average of $8,488 per student, according to figures from the Kansas Policy Institute, a Wichita think-tank that advocates for free-market solutions and personal freedom. That number has since risen to $12,454 in the 2011-12 school year.

Kansas funds districts at a rate of $6,932 per pupil, while the remainder is filled out by local property taxes and federal money.

Dave Trabert, KPI President, said state and school officials need to focus on the resources they have rather than simply pump more money into the system.

“Everywhere you look you find information that makes it pretty clear that there’s not a correlation or a causation between spending a lot more money and achieving a lot more; it’s not there,” Trabert said.

Trabert points to states such as Colorado and Texas, saying they spend about $1,000 less per pupil than Kansas while posting better scores on tests like the ACT. He says it’s more important to properly use the resources at hand rather than to throw more money at the problem.

Tom Foster, director for Career Standards and Assessment Services for the Kansas Department of Education, agreed with Trabert — to some extent.

“There’s no one thing that’s going to solve the problem,” Foster said. “I think just putting more money at it without any other changes is not going to work as well as we’d like it to work.”

Foster said state education officials are addressing the issue highlighted by the ACT, which, he said, can be solved at least in part with a greater focus on getting students college- and career-ready.

“Part of the problem with an ACT score is a lot of kids don’t get it until the end of their junior year or the end of their senior year, and then it’s a little late in the game,” Foster said.

Travis Perry is an investigative reporter covering news and politics for Watchdog.org's Kansas bureau. Before joining the organization, Travis graduated cum laude from Washburn University and cut his teeth as news editor for the Osawatomie Graphic, where he received numerous awards from the Kansas Press Association.

I don’t think anyone would argue that we don’t need to work to improve ACT scores. However, this article fails to mention the gains schools have made in the number of students taking the test or recognize the escalating obstacles to success like poverty and language barriers. The additional money going into the education system has been focused on bringing up the bottom, not pushing up the top students.

http://twitter.com/PatriciaHouser PatriciaHouser

good report

adastraperapathy

Very true. This article is looking at two statistics. One is good and one is mediocre. The article focuses on the mediocre statistic, failing to say how many more students are taking the test.

It also fails to mention that much of the increase in state funding over the past several years is for students with special needs and ESL, many of whom don’t even take the ACT.

It would also be nice to have numbers that are from the State Department of Education instead of KPI. KPI’s main agenda is cutting public school funding and subsidizing private schools, not improving public schools.

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